Edinburgh woman’s forgotten bank account pays 60 years later with extra interest

An Edinburgh woman discovered a 60-year-old bank account and was delighted to learn she could cash the money, with additional interest.

Carol Allison, from Stockbridge, was just six when she spent a year with her grandmother and was taken to the local bank branch every week to deposit a shilling into her account.

More than 60 years later, she was shocked to find the bankbook while cleaning her house.

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Carol took the book to her local branch and was stunned to find that the £2.50 she had in the account had accrued 100% interest and was now worth £250.

Now the Edinburgh woman is urging others to claim any old bank accounts lying around.

The BBC report that when an account has not been used for 15 years, UK banks and building societies send the money to the Reclaim Fund.

He received over £1.4billion from dormant accounts and only £100,000 was recovered.

Carol, who is now 74, lived in Manila in the Philippines when she was young. Every three years, she returned home to Edinburgh with her mother, Anna Paton, and her brother, Gerard.

They would spend a year with their grandmother in Northumberland Street, Stockbridge. Her father, James Paton, would join them for part of the year.

On one such trip, when she was six years old, her grandmother, Helen Ivory, took them to deposit pocket money at the Trustee Savings Bank – later to become TSB. Carol paid a shilling – now worth five pence – every week.

“I remember the big shiny wooden counter at the bank and my grandmother introducing us to the cashier,” she said.

“He would fill in the book by hand, then we would bring our books back to Grandma.

“It was a very grown-up thing to do and on the way home she would stop by the baker to buy us ice cream cakes for our afternoon tea. We would never eat them on the street, we wouldn’t even think about it, we’d be waiting for afternoon tea.

Carol received the passbook when her grandmother died, aged 80, in 1969.

It was forgotten until it was rediscovered – along with two other bank books – while she was tidying up in her house. The other books are from the 1980s.

The mother-of-four told BBC Scotland: ‘I was thinking of trying one.

“I was really happy and thanked my grandmother, in a low voice, when they told me I had £250.

“They said it has continued to generate interest throughout. I will now see what has accumulated in the other two now, it is very exciting.

A total of 35 banks and building societies in the UK are registered with the Reclaim Fund, which was launched in 2011.

This independent non-profit government body has donated £800million to charity and kept £600million to cover customers claiming their money.

Chief executive Adrian Smith said the money was donated to charities dealing with social investment, children and financial inclusion.

He added: “It’s very important for people to know that their money is never lost, they can always get it back.

“The money goes back to accounts that are 50, 60, 70 years old – they go back as far as the records go.

“We take care of the money we donate to charity, but we always have to have enough to meet the demands. I always encourage anyone who thinks they have a lost account to apply.

Anyone who thinks they have lost their account can fill out an online form. You don’t need the original bankbook to claim money if you have the address where you lived and the name of the bank.

It was announced this week that the dormant assets regime will be expanded to include the insurance, pensions, investment and wealth management, and securities sectors.

This will unlock an additional £880m, on top of the money from the recovery fund.